In response to attacking Margaret Atwood (25 Dec. 2008)

It's too bad that growth now seems to have become a neo-con term. (One would hope progressives would see something in it they might like. Stasis -- homeo or otherwise -- just sounds so conservative.) So the story of evolutionary biology is that we start off with lots and lots of stuff, and end up with the same amount of lots and lots of stuff? We never did just have a couple fish, and end up with a bounty of them?

Atwood -- being somewhat typically Canadian -- finds growth, anxious (so do I, some), and so all this activity has her thinking of resting and quiet talks. Periods of manic economic growth (what we've been living through) make most people anxious. Industrial England made the Cranford ladies extremely uncomfortable -- to the delight of Elizabeth Gaskell! The 1920s were another such period, and its termination was ultimately greeted with a sense of relief (in the Great Depression, there were FEWER suicides -- no joke!). And so ended economic growth. And so ended artistic growth. And so ended societal growth.

I bought a lot. I also experienced a lot. It was what I had to do during this period to live. Now that the societal climate has changed, I won't buy as much, but I'll still find ways to grow.

Link: The Tyee

Comments

Discussion over the fate of Jolenta, at the Gene Wolfe facebook appreciation site

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Salon discussion of "Almost Famous" gang-rape scene

Patrick McEvoy-Halston: The "Almost Famous'" gang-rape scene? Isn't this the film that features the deflowering of a virgin -- out of boredom -- by a pack of predator-vixons, who otherwise thought so little of him they were quite willing to pee in his near vicinity? Maybe we'll come to conclude that "[t]he scene only works because people were stupid about [boy by girl] [. . .] rape at the time" (Amy Benfer). Sawmonkey: Lucky boy Pull that stick a few more inches out of your chute, Patrick. This was one of the best flicks of the decade. (sawmonkey, response to post, “Films of the decade: ‘Amost Famous’, R.J. Culter, Salon, 13 Dec. 2009) Patrick McEvoy-Halston: @sawmonkey It made an impression on me too. Great charm. Great friends. But it is one of the things you (or at least I) notice on the review, there is the SUGGESTION, with him being so (rightly) upset with the girls feeling so free to pee right before him, that sex with him is just further presump

When Rose McGowan appears in Asgard: a review of "Thor: Ragnarok"

The best part of this film was when Rose McGowan appeared in Asgard and accosted Odin and his sons for covering up, with a prettified, corporate, outward appearance that's all gay-friendly, feminist, multicultural, absolutely for the rights of the indigenous, etc., centuries of past abuse, where they predated mercilessly upon countless unsuspecting peoples. And the PR department came in and said, okay Weinstein... I mean Odin and Odin' sons, here's what we suggest you do. First, you, Odin, are going to have to die. No extensive therapy; when it comes to predators who are male, especially white and male, this age doesn't believe in therapy. You did what you did because you are, or at least strongly WERE, evil, so that's what we have to work with. Now death doesn't seem like "working with it," I know, but the genius is that we'll do the rehab with your sons, and when they're resurrected as somehow more apart from your regime,

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